The game, a sequel to Maniac Mansion, is focused on
Bernard Bernoulli — the only one of the three playable characters
that was featured in the first game — and his friends Laverne and
Hoagie, as they help Dr. Fred Edison using a time machine to prevent Purple Tentacle
from taking over the world. The game utilizes time travel and the
effects of changing history as part of the many puzzles to be
solved in the game.

Contents

Gameplay

Day of the Tentacle follows the point-and-click
two-dimensional adventure game formula, first
established by the original Maniac Mansion. Players direct the
controllable characters around the game world by clicking with the
computer mouse. To interact with the game world, players choose
from a set of commands arrayed on the screen and then on an object
in the world. This was the last SCUMM game to use the original interface of
having the bottom of the screen being taken up by a verb selection
and inventory; starting with the next game to use the SCUMM engine, Sam and Max Hit the Road, the engine
was modified to scroll through a more concise list of verbs with
the right mouse button and having the inventory on a separate
screen. This formula carried on to later games in the franchise,
such as The Dig,
Full Throttle and
The Curse of Monkey
Island. In Day of the Tentacle, the player can
switch between any one of the three playable characters at any
time, though two of the characters must first be unlocked by the
completion of certain puzzles. The three protagonists can also
share inventory items amongst themselves (at least, those items
that can be stowed in a toilet), a feature that plays into many of
the game's puzzles. Many puzzles are based on time travel and the
effects of aging on objects and the changing of the past are used
as part of the solution. For example, one puzzle requires the
player to send a medical chart of a Tentacle back to the past,
having it used as the design of the American flag, then
collecting one such flag in the future to be used as a Tentacle
disguise.

In Maniac Mansion, the playable characters can be
killed by various sequences of events. LucasArts adopted a
different philosophy towards its adventure games in 1990, beginning
with Loom.
Their philosophy was that the game should not punish the player for
exploring the game world. Accordingly, in most of the adventure
games released by LucasArts after Loom, including Day
of the Tentacle, the player character(s) cannot die.

The whole original Maniac Mansion game can be played on
a computer inside the Day of the Tentacle game; this
practice has since been repeated by other game developers, but at
the time of Day of the Tentacle's release, it was
unprecedented.[2]

Story

The Purple Tentacle, seen here shortly after his mutation in the
opening cinematic, is the main antagonist in Day of the
Tentacle.

The game, which takes place five years after Maniac
Mansion, opens with Purple Tentacle becoming exposed to
toxic waste spewing from Dr. Fred Edison's mansion. The toxic waste
isn't the by-product of any experiment, it's a device designed
specifically to pump toxic sludge out of the building, as it is all
the rage with mad scientists lately. Purple's ingestion of it
results in him growing a pair of flipper-like arms, vastly
increased intelligence, and acquiring a thirst for global domination. Dr. Fred catches Purple
Tentacle, as well as the friendly, non-evil Green Tentacle, and
keeps them both in his basement before deciding that he will
euthanize them. That evening, Green Tentacle sends a plea of help
to his old friend Bernard Bernoulli — a stereotypical nerd and character from the first
game — who heads off to the mansion to rescue him, accompanied by
his friends, Laverne, a slightly psychotic medical student, and
Hoagie, a laid-back heavy metalroadie. Bernard frees Green
and Purple, only for Purple to inform him of his plans of world
domination and resume his conquering of the Earth. Since he can't
figure out a way to stop Purple now that he's begun his mad quest,
Dr. Edison attempts to send the three friends back in time to
'yesterday' using his time machine, which consists of a central
unit made out of an old car and three personal travel units called
"Chron-o-Johns", made from portable toilets. By doing so, they can
turn off the sludge machine which produced the toxic waste so that
Purple never ingests the waste in the first place, hence
pre-emptively stopping him from taking over the world. However,
because Dr. Edison has used an imitation diamond as the power source, the machine fails,
sending Hoagie 200 years in the past, where he learns that the
mansion was the setting for the creation of the United States Constitution,
and Laverne 200 years in the future to a Tentacle-controlled world
where humans are treated as pets and Purple is revered as a hero,
while Bernard remains in the present. Dr. Edison tasks Bernard with
finding a real diamond to power the time machine to return his
friends to the present so that they can try to travel to yesterday
once again, while informing Hoagie and Laverne through the
Chron-o-John that they must find power sources for their own units
in order to bring them back. Fortunately for all involved
(especially Hoagie, who has been sent back to before electricity
was available), the three can send small objects back and forth in
time through the Chron-o-Johns in order to complete these
tasks.

Eventually, Bernard uses Dr. Edison's old family fortune to buy
a real diamond, both Laverne and Hoagie manage to power their
units, and the three are reunited in the present. Dr. Edison
attempts to send them back into the past again, this time
successfully. Upon arrival, they find that the Purple Tentacle from
200 years in the future has also used the time machine to bring
several versions of himself to the same day to prevent them from
turning off the sludge machine. Bernard and his friends
successfully defeat all the Purple Tentacles, turn off the machine
and restore the course of future events to normal order. The game
ends with the credits rolling over a Tentacle-shaped American flag,
one of the more significant results of their tampering in
history.

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Historical interaction

One of the aspects of Day of the Tentacle's plot is
that it gives the game player the opportunity to interact with the
comedic, cartoony versions of several figures from colonial America, like George
Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin
Franklin, John
Hancock and Betsy
Ross; whose descendants (or at least characters that resemble
them) can be spotted in the other ages. Harold, seemingly a
descendant of Washington, appears as a transvestite in a future
beauty contest organized by the Tentacles. An apparent descendant
of Ben Franklin makes an appearance as a novelty toy salesman and a
descendant of John Hancock appears as a depressed inventor named
Dwayne.

Some of the more entertaining puzzles of the game involve these
characters. In one sequence, Hoagie must give an exploding cigar
to Washington in order to replace his famous false teeth with
chattering novelty mechanical dentures, while in another he gives a
drawing of a tentacle to Ross, who sews it into the American flag. In another scene, in order
to coax Washington into chopping down a kumquat tree, Hoagie must paint the fruits red,
as Washington insists that he only chops down cherry trees, referring to a legend concerning
Washington's youth.

Reception

Day of the Tentacle was well received at the time of its
release, and still features regularly in lists of 'top' games to
this day. Adventure Gamers included the game as
#1 on their 20 Greatest Adventure Games of All Time List.[3]IGN rated it number 60 on their 2005
top 100 games list[4] and CVG has it at number 30[5], it is
also listed as one of the greatest games of all time on GameSpot.[2]

Adventure
Gamers' review rated the game 5 out of 5, stating "If someone
were to ask for a few examples of games that exemplify the best of
the graphic adventure genre, Day of the Tentacle would certainly be
near the top".[6]

The game was reviewed in 1993 in Dragon
#199 by Sandy
Petersen in the "Eye of the Monitor" column. Petersen gave the
game 4 out of 5 stars.[7]

Development

The game was originally intended to resemble Maniac Mansion
more closely, with the player allowed to choose from among six
characters (who would have included a male poet named Chester, a
female hippie named Moonglow described as "a New Age girl with sandals", and
Razor from the original game). This idea was dropped in
preproduction to simplify the project. The art created for the
character of Chester was eventually adapted for the characters of
the sculptor twins in the final game.

At the 2009 E3 convention, it was
revealed that both a special edition remake of The Secret of Monkey
Island along with a new episodic series of games created
by Telltale
Games, Tales of Monkey Island,
would be released in 2009. Telltale Games CEO, Dan Connors, when
asked about the possibility of bringing back other LucasArts
adventure titles, noted that an episodic game based on Day of
the Tentacle would be "feasible", seeing it as part of a
trilogy of LucasArts adventure games along with Sam & Max
and Monkey Island. However, Connors cautioned that such an
endeavor would hinge on the sales of the new Monkey Island
titles.[8]